PHOTOS: First Reused Orbital Rocket in History Makes Sunrise Return to Cape Canaveral

By Mike Killian, on April 4th, 2017

SpaceX’s Falcon-9 arriving into Port Canaveral this morning after launching (and landing) its SECOND mission just days ago (SES-10), the first orbital rocket in history to be reused. Photo Credit: Mike Killian / AmericaSpace

The first orbital rocket in history to be reused is now docked in Port Canaveral, having made a sunrise arrival this morning into the Cape after successfully launching the SES-10 satellite from Kennedy Space Center pad 39A just days ago.

As is becoming the norm for SpaceX, the company successfully landed the booster on their droneship, “Of Course I Still Love You” just minutes after launch, triumphantly showing all who have said they couldn’t fly reused boosters, that in fact, yes they can – and they just did.

The SES-10 satellite hitching a ride to orbit on SpaceX’s first reused Falcon-9, which also landed successfully minutes later on the company’s offshore autonomous drone ship. Photo Credit: John Studwell / AmericaSpace

Since the mission was heading for geostationary altitude, about 22,300 miles (35,800 km) above the planet, significantly higher energy and velocity demands were brought to bear on the booster, when compared to journeys into low-Earth orbit. As a result, landing the booster back on the Cape’s Landing Zone-1 (LZ-1) was not possible for this flight. Instead, “Of Course I Still Love You” was drawn out of the Port of Jacksonville on Saturday afternoon, by means of the Elsbeth III tug, bound for a position about 420 miles (680 km) offshore, representing the first ASDS landing for a Florida-launched mission since last August’s JCSAT-16 mission.

Interestingly, the stage’s previous ASDS landing, back in April 2016, was actually the very first successful landing of a Falcon 9 on the drone ship.

At 6:35 p.m. March 30, a mere 8.5 minutes after leaving Earth for the second time, the first “re-used” orbital SpaceX booster alighted with precision on the Done Ship.

Now a piece of aerospace history, the company’s leader Elon Musk has stated the rocket will be given as a museum piece for Cape Canaveral (where and when exactly are TBD).

Ultimately, SpaceX is aiming for rapid turnaround time and reusability – only needing to refuel the rocket in order to fly again. They want to be able launch one mission, land the booster, then use the same rocket to launch another mission within 24 hours.

The company still has quite a bit of work to do to get to a rapid turnaround time with the same rocket. For the SES-10 booster, extensive work & inspections were done after its first flight (CRS-8) to make it “flyable” again. Hardware such as auxiliary components were swapped out, and hot fire tests were also conducted at the company’s Texas proving grounds, before sending the rocket back to Florida for its historic second flight.

And the company has yet another “first” on the near horizon, which will put them deep into ULA territory. They are preparing to launch their first mission for the United States National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), responsible for putting the country’s most secretive national security assets into space.

The mission, identified only as NROL-76, is targeted for launch off pad 39A no earlier than April, and with the classified nature of the mission, a launch “window” will likely not be released until the day before (or even day of) the flight.

That said, it is not yet known if the booster will attempt a landing on the Cape or offshore again, stay tuned…

The SpaceX ASDS are modified Marmac 300 series barges, they weigh about 2000 tons or 4,000,000 lbs.
With a Falcon-9 payload to LEO of approx. 50,000 lbs, you’d need at least 80 of these rockets to place an ASDS barge into orbit [once you saw the barge into 80 small pieces…ask first ;-)].

Those tugboats in Alen Walter’s beautiful photos, weigh about 300 tons, so you’d need about a dozen Falcon-9 launches to get one of those tug boats into orbit.

As opposed to just ripping you a new one for your incomprehension, please note I used the word “boats” and not “barge”. They both float on water and begin with “b”, but otherwise are quite distinct from each other.

The Falcon 9 probably can orbit several of the day cruiser, 4 to 6 person boats in the marina which it dwarfs. I have never claimed it could orbit the barge it lands on.